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Baptism: The Nights at Catedral

June 2021. Tennis had just gotten into my bloodstream, and I had a deep necessity to hold a racket and be at the courts every living second I had in my life. Now, the challenge was that there was nobody to play with. Javier, an exotic feller I had hailed myself to play with me, had gone away to work for MSC Cruises to prepare the MSC World Europa for her maiden voyage. Rodrigo, a hard-headed full-on tennis pro I went to school with, was too fast-paced for the baby steps I was taking at the time, so that companion was discarded as well. Monsieur Marcel Jeanpierre, a charming old gentleman, and father of three tennis pros was my last resource, but his free time and my free time did not coincide (we played a delightful match later on that year). So I was left to my own devices, but behold! One day, walking around the tennis courts (which I must add, were charmingly dilapidated), I found a training wall––those high walls that have a net painted on them and a mock tennis court in front, so ...

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Beer is Sweeter on the Other Side

August 13, 2022. Our dessert chapter at school was coming to an end, and we had to show Chef Vasquez if we had really inherited his sweet thumb, or if we were confined to the grill for the rest of our lives. We were divided in groups of three to bake a wedding cake and decorate it, and on the side, we all got assigned individually a sugary wonder to test our glucose prowess by ourselves. Some got the puff pastry, others got the pâte-a-choux, some got the all-feared soufflé, and I got the ice-cream. Chef Vasquez was a very old-fashioned man. He used to be from the 82nd Paratrooper Brigade, but on one of his jumps he landed in a kitchen and liked it better there. He liked us to learn how to do things as if we had no electricity––mayonnaise by hand, eggs for the sponge cake whipped by elbow grease, peeling veggies with a pairing knife and not a peeler, and forget pasta machines when there's rolling pins. Don't get me wrong, I'm ever-thankful for his teachings; knowing how to w...